The President in his State of the Union address illustrated the double standard between Clean Energy and Natural Gas.

He did so not a day to early.  The investment the USA has made into developing natural gas without the same investment in Clean Energy has placed clean energy industries in the path of danger of extinction. 

Herman K. Trabish

January 18, 2012

Will the Plunging Price of Natural Gas Ruin Renewables? (click title to entry - thank you)

Yes, says Warren Buffett’s policy guy: renewables have a policy option and a marketplace advantage.

...At a meeting of the five largest solar developers and the three largest turbine manufacturers last September, the manufacturers said they had no orders beyond June 2012 and the developers said they had no plans beyond November 2012 according to a Capitol Hill lobbyist that spoke with GTM. “Just nothing,” the lobbyist said. “It’s a cliff.”


Those companies faced the prospect of Congress allowing the lapse of the 1603 cash grant for the solar industry’s investment tax credit (ITC), the impending threat that Congress will not extend the wind industry’s crucial production tax credit (PTC) beyond this year, and the likely inability of federal trade regulators to stop Chinese anti-competitive practices.

Warren Buffett’s MidAmerican Energy has built nearly 600 megawatts of wind in the last two years. But, as MidAmerican federal policy vice president Jonathan Weisgall noted to GTM, “do we have plans beyond December 31 of this year for wind? No.” Because, Weisgall explained, “If the production tax credit is not extended, wind will probably not be the least-cost option.”...